Fuzzy homogeneity and scale-space approach to color image segmentation

Image segmentation is the procedure in which the original image is partitioned into homogeneous regions, and has many applications. In this paper, a fuzzy homogeneity and scale-space approach to color image segmentation is proposed. A color image is transformed into fuzzy domain with maximum fuzzy entropy principle. The fuzzy homogeneity histogram is employed, and both global and local informations are considered when we process fuzzy homogeneity histogram. The scale-space filter is utilized for analyzing the fuzzy homogeneity histogram to find the appropriate segments of the homogeneity histogram bounded by the local extrema of the derivatives. A fuzzy region merging process is then implemented based on color difference and cluster sizes to avoid over-segmentation. The proposed method is compared with the space domain approach, and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. (C) 2003 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.